In addressing the question of whether learner control of instruction can accommodate individual differences, this paper discusses some characteristics of learner control, including those conditions of learning which the student can control and those imposed by society and its institutions which are not under individual control. Studies of attempts to accommodate individual differences by various methodologies are reviewed, and a more detailed description is provided of a study of BIP, an interactive computer course on computer programming offered at Stanford University. This course, which involved university undergraduates who spent 15 hours learning the BASIC computer language, is cited as an advanced example of learner controlled instruction. The BIP program is designed to keep detailed protocols of each student's learning activities, thus providing intermediate measures to describe individual differences in learning activities that may contribute to success or failure in the course. Findings of the study indicated that individual differences in learning increased over the duration of the course, that a multidimensional scaling of the correlations among learning activity variables showed a clear circumplex structure, and that measures of learning activities, rate, and outcomes were strongly predicted from initial aptitude differences. Summary conclusions suggest that learner control does not accommodate individual differences. (RAO)